Search form

Rural Groups Call for Better Broadband Service

Some summit participants compared broadband to a basic necessity, like water.

In its relentless
effort to take over competitor T-Mobile, AT&T has been dangling the promise
of better service and greater access to broadband Internet to rural Americans
as an incentive for policymakers to support and approve the $39 billion deal.
But in eastern Kentucky, activists for rural broadband aren’t holding their
breath and waiting for AT&T to make good on this promise.

Advocates from
five states and Washington, D.C. gathered in Whitesburg, Ky. this week for the
first Rural Broadband Summit and Hearing, cosponsored by the Center for Media
Justice, the Center for Rural Strategies and Free Press.

They’re
discussing issues at the heart of rural broadband expansion that are often
overlooked in the Beltway debate: lower levels of access and use in rural areas
and the often excessive cost to consumers for what is frequently inadequate
service.

Participants
represent groups working in arts and culture, health care, higher education,
tribal issues, community development and community organizing. Participants
hailed from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, California and
Washington, D.C.

“This is a unique
mixture of people and groups,” said Edyael Casaperalta of the Center for Rural Strategies. “And it
underscores how broadband affects so many different parts of our communities —
economic development, education, health care, civic engagement, and cultural
expression.”

Rural communities
lag behind the rest of the nation in both broadband access and access speeds,
and tend to have few or no choices among Internet providers. Even those who are lucky enough to have
service typically experience slower download and upload speeds, according to a Daily
Yonder analysis of data collected by the FCC and the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Summit
participants discussed several policy solutions for improving broadband
availability and access, including government assistance in encouraging greater
investment. “There are some rural areas where a government subsidy could help
bring in private providers,” said James Patterson of the West Virginia Partnership of African American
Churches.

But there are
other regions that will never attract private enterprise. “In those places
there has to be an alternative,” Patterson said, like some kind of public investment
in infrastructure.

Other summit
participants advocated increasing competition by encouraging the creation of municipal
and nonprofit networks in rural communities, an approach similar to the one
taken by electrical and telephone cooperatives that wired much of rural America
after private providers stopped expanding their networks to those areas.

Others compared
broadband to a basic necessity, like water.

“We can’t just
wait until providing Internet broadband to some rural communities becomes
profitable,” said Mark Kidd of Appalshop, a
Whitesburg-based arts and education center. “What if we had waited until it was
profitable before we ran water and electricity to some rural areas?”

Event organizers said
the concerns they heard about rural telecommunications were similar to what
they heard in other parts of the country.

“Outrageous
prices, poor service, decreased choice and few consumer protections are just
some of the challenges community members face when it comes to the Internet,”
said amalia deloney of the Center
for Media Justice. “Rural communities are looking to the FCC to protect
their interests — especially as it reforms the Universal Service Fund and
considers the proposed acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T. It’s clear that
rural shouldn’t [bear] any more costs.”

The Universal
Service Fund is a federal mechanism that helps defray the costs of telephone
service to hard-to-serve areas. The FCC is currently
considering changes to the fund that might improve broadband access.

Free Press
Associate Outreach Director Misty Perez Truedson said telecoms needed to do
more to serve rural communities with broadband.

“Broadband access
is crucial to rural communities, which are among some of the hardest hit in the
economic downturn,” she said. “But Internet service providers’ empty promises
are not going to get Americans connected. We need real investment spurred by
competition, and policies that put consumers ahead of the bottom line.

"Access to
fast, affordable Internet service is what will help rural communities
participate in the modern economy, not a bunch of hot air and promises that
can’t be enforced.”

The rural broadband
event continued on Wednesday with a public hearing on broadband policy. The hearing
featured speakers including Jonathan Adelstein, director of the USDA Rural
Utilities Service, which directs broadband and other infrastructure programs.

Tim Marema is the vice president of the Center for Rural Strategies, a Kentucky-based nonprofit that seeks to improve economic and social conditions for rural communities through the creative and innovative use of media and communications.

Freepress.net is a project of Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund. Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund do not support or oppose any candidate for public office. We are nonpartisan organizations fighting to save the free and open Internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and ensure diverse voices are represented in our media.